Dern’s Prize Grab; Italian Beauty; Shia LaBeouf: Movies

Galatea Ranzi and Toni Servillo in "The Great Beauty." The film is playing in New York. Photographer: Gianni Fiorito/Janus Films via Bloomberg

Nov. 16 (Bloomberg) -- In Alexander Payne’s heartfelt, if
jerry-rigged, “Nebraska,” an old man’s newfound childlike
wonder is attributed to nothing so brutal as Alzheimer’s or
years of hard-drinking.

“He just believes what people tell him,” says his son,
with the sort of deadpan whimsy that marks (and mars) so much of
Payne’s work, from “About Schmidt” to “The Descendants.”

A late-career kiss for the Oscar-hunting Bruce Dern, the
quirky “Nebraska” is less convincing as Middle-American
eulogy. There’s more than a whiff of condescension here.

Dern plays Woody Grant (how’s that for American Gothic?), a
grouchy Korean War vet with a shrill wife (June Squibb, stealing
scenes as befits a foul-mouthed granny), two emotionally distant
sons and a lifelong love of alcohol as unruly as the gray hairs
sprouting from his nostrils.

Toting a junk-mail sweepstakes letter that he thinks will
make him rich, Woody recruits son David (an earnest Will Forte)
to embark on the 800-mile-plus road trip from Billings, Montana,
to the Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his prize.

Anywhere else but in this movie, Woody’s quest would
evidence a high level of dementia. “Nebraska” is far too
precious to entertain that notion.

“The guy just needs something to live for,” David tells
his less understanding brother (Bob Odenkirk), and there you
have the message, barely 10 minutes into the film.

Ancient Moochers

Father and son then go off-route to visit Woody’s hometown,
where taciturn men have monosyllabic conversations and long-lost
moochers (including Woody’s sleazy old business partner, well
played by Stacy Keach) make claims on the fantasy winnings.

Of course David could clear up all misunderstandings by
producing the ludicrous certificate, but that would pop the
bubble that “Nebraska” so coyly blows.

Handsomely filmed in stark black and white, “Nebraska”
feels artificial, an overly fanciful ode to a make-believe
Midwest where folks still call underwear “bloomers” and get
bees in their bonnets.

“Nebraska,” from Paramount Pictures, is playing in New
York and Los Angeles. Rating: **1/2 (Evans)

‘Great Beauty’

As a promising young author in Rome, Jep Gambardella (Toni
Servillo) abandoned his talent to become king of the city’s high
life. He never wrote a second novel, he says, because he never
found “the great beauty” he was looking for.

Jep is a fool: that beauty is all around him. His
breathtaking apartment overlooks the Coliseum and every palazzo
he dines in, every monument he passes, even every strip club he
frequents is a heavenly version of the standard model.

Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty” lives up to its
title: It’s resplendent, it’s ravishing. Sorrentino’s restlessly
tracking camera accompanies Jep through a fantasy of Rome,
devoid of graffiti, as scrubbed and sparkling as Paris.

Rather than trying to tamp down Fellini’s influence,
Sorrentino puts it on ostentatious display -- in his caged
society beasts, his fashion-plate clergy and faces rendered as
gloriously freakish masks -- and then soars beyond it.

In the character of a witchy, century-old saint who heals
the sick in Africa (where she feeds solely on roots), he moves,
in four masterly steps, from weirdness to satire to enchantment
to transcendence.

The startling appearance of a giraffe recalls the vision of
the peacock in the snow in Fellini’s “Amarcord.” Sorrentino
puts a magician among his big cast so he can have him tell Jep
(after he makes the animal vanish), “It’s just a trick.” Jep,
thinking at last about another novel, applies those words to
art.

It’s a trick, and it’s a great deal more.

“The Great Beauty,” from Janus Films, is playing in New
York. Rating: ***** (Seligman)

‘Charlie Countryman’

Shia LaBeouf, in the aimless adventure “Charlie
Countryman,” can see dead people, until it no longer suits the
plot.